Life After RDTC/WI CDL School

Well... met my trainer this morning. Has a nice light day. Only drove about 200 miles from gary to Madison with about 40000lbs of pipe. Unloaded some here, then we have 2 more stops close by we can't deliver to until tomorrow. I was very pleasantly surprised that I retained as much as I did and only took a quick lap around the gary yard to remember how to shift and turn. The trainer is thrilled with where my skills are at. Couple tiny mistakes but I was able to sort them out, and besides from the noises escaping the gearbox you'd never know. So very happy to be on the road.

 

Long day today. Went almost to the edge of my 14. This morning we offloaded at our last 2 stops. They were all kinds of fubar, and took some time to straighten out. We then got a pre plan out in Saukville for some slinkies with a tight show up time. Made it there with 10 minutes to spare. Loaded up and tarped, then started moving. Loaded up to 79340lbs, the heaviest I've hauled. Went through some rush hour traffic, had some troubles with shifting with that much weight moving at a crawl with traffic all around uphill, but I got it figured out. Drove 300 miles today. We will be dropping off in Madison hts. Michigan tomorrow by 1300.

 

Ok. So. Two day update for yinz. Yesterday. We delivered out a couple miles north of Detroit. Got a pre plan for a pickup in Canada about 25 miles across the border with a delivery in peru, IL. With a delivery date for monday. Well, we loaded up, screwed up some customs paperwork, so we're delayed getting it all sorted. By that time, my 14 was up, so my trainer took the wheel and got us back across the border to dexter, mi where we spent the night. We stopped I. Gary for showers and some supplies and tried to relay the load, but that didn't work out, so now we're in a truck stop 300 yards from our delivery with a day to wait. Hooray! Both today and yesterday yielded about 300 miles each.

 

That was the plan. Also gonna walk across the street to Walmart and restock some of the food/water supply

 

So. Update. I have completed my training time and tested out this (technically yesterday) morning in gary. They didn't have trucks there for me or another guy testing out that morning and so they got us a rental car and we hauled arse down to Ellenwood where we were told our trucks would be waiting for us. We got down here at 3 am eastern time (since we werent able to leave gary till 2:30 pm and no one is here. Our trucks were unlocked, so at least we can sleep, but no keys for my compadres prostar with the optiidle, plus he was told that he can take his truck home tonight. As for me, they have me in a Columbia, which is a big issue for me. I'm 6'8" and I just don't fit behind the wheel of these things. The seat doesn't go back far enough, the steering wheel is at a bad angle, I can't use my clutch without bashing my knee off the steering wheel and I can't indicate left hand turns with my knee taking out the stalk. I can fudge it for short trips and make it work, but I cannot safely operate one of these for extended periods of time. And of course since it's 4am, there's no one to talk to to get this resolved. Hopefully we can come to a reasonable solution.